Chapter 13: A Sacrifice - Part 1
It was dark. It was cold. It was quiet. It was motionless.
And Shadow the Hedgehog was scared.
It was an emotion he hadn't felt for a long time. Fear was virtually non-existent to him. He was the ultimate life-form, incapable of feeling the emotions of the weak. But, trapped there in the utter darkness, unbreathing and unmoving, it had come to him.
First, black tendrils of fright and worry had snaked through his systems, anywhere they touched going cold and numb. They crept through him, building up panic in his heart. Sheer stubborness, confidence, and even happiness tried to block its path, but one by one they fell. Stubborness turned to doubt, confidence turned to disbelief, and happiness crumbled quickly into nothingness as his own emotions were swallowed by terror. All that was left were the unyeilding vines of pure fear, which crept slowly but surely into his heart.
Then Shadow was paralyzed. There was nothing he could do, even to show panic. He couldn't even hear a pounding heartbeat in his ears. His body was gone, and only his trapped soul remained. And fear was tearing it apart.
He felt like he was going insane, alone and scared and frozen in nothingness.
He was about to give in.
Then suddenly, there was a spot of light in the darkness. He began to feel warm. The warmth grew to proper heat, seeping into him and banishing the fear. He found that he could fight the dissapating darkness. His old personality rose up in a great wave, answering the warmth and fighting out all traces of worry. All the while, the distant light grew brighter and brighter, until finally it engulfed his vision. The light blinded him, but it was lifting him out of darkness. He let himself be taken by it, taken away from that dark place.
Was he free?
Then he sensed a presence behind him. He turned and found himself looking at yet another pony, lit by the white nothingness all around them.
'This... this isn't right. I'm supposed to be free... but how do I know that? What's going on?'
The pony before him smiled. Shadow realised she could hear every word he thought.
'Who are you? Why am I here? Where the flipping heck am I?'
"Calm thyself, hero." The pony's voice was deep and melodious, slightly young yet a thousand years old. Timeless was the only word to truely describe it. "You are merely dreaming, seeing a memory."
She was right. The moment those words hit Shadow's ears he realised this was how he had felt when he was breaking free of the stone statue Discord had trapped him in.
Then confusion flooded Shadow's mind. "How do you know I'm dreaming? Am I dreaming you too?"
"No, hero. I have stepped into your dreams, pausing them. You were about to awaken when I appeared."
"How did you - "
"I am the mistress of the night, thus I can enter dreams at will. My name is Princess Luna."
Again, as those words entered his mind, he suddenly realised he had seen her before. She was at the library when they were discussing the future. How could he have not recognized the pale blue alicorn, that flowing mane like the night sky and those piercing turquoise eyes?
"Then why are you here?"
"I am here to tell you of the future. I sense great disturbances on your path, pain and loss that worry me. But for reasons beyond me, I can see your fate the most."
Shadow was suddenly cautious. "Then... what will happen to me?"
"I know that you will feel unimportant and lost in the shadows of the others - " She paused. "Your name is Shadow, is it not?"
"Yes. Why?"
She stared at him, and then lowered her gaze.
Shadow returned the stare. Then he snapped out of it, and said, "Continue."
"But I know that eventually, you shall play a great role."
Shadow faltered in surprise. A great role? "Why are you telling me this?" he inquired. "Why do I need to know my destiny?"
"Because..." Luna sighed. She suddenly seemed sad.
"Because I don't want you to make the mistakes I made. When I felt unimportant and lost, I grew resentful and angry, and finally rose against my sister. That foolish move cost me my freedom for a thousand years."
She met Shadow's gaze. She reached out a tentative hoof. Shadow felt the cool glass of Luna's horseshoe touch his cheek.
"We are not too different, you and I. Both of us know the feeling of being out of commision for thousands of years. Both of us know how it feels to be evil. Both of us are so much more special than anyone knows."
She smiled a little. "I favor you, hero, above any of the others. I promise to guide you down your path."
The light seemed to glow brighter. Luna glanced upwards.
"My hold on your dream won't last much longer. Soon you will awaken."
"Wait!" barked Shadow. "Tell me more! What role will I play? How do know everything about my past?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but she faltered as she was blown backwards, away from Shadow, by gusts of magical winds.
"Don't go! I have so much to ask you!" Shadow tried to run towards her, but he couldn't move again. He was being carried upwards, back into the light.
"Remember what I said, hero!" came Luna's voice, fading rapidly. "Don't forget your role! Don't make the mistakes I made!"
"Wait!" Shadow tried to call to her, but she was already rippling away, consumed by light, and all he could do was stare upwards, into the light and out of his dreams.
===
Shadow sat up, gasping.
A cool breeze swept over his skin. Blades of grass tickled his legs. The mountains stood all around him, and the night sky was filled with stars.
And as Shadow gazed into the night, he thought he saw the sillhouette of a tall, winged pony fly in front of the moon, ethereal mane and tail flowing.
***
Rainbow Dash rubbed her hoof against the gleaming scarlet bolt on her neck.
Twilight wanted to find the last Emerald swiftly, so to travel to Sonic's world and find the rest. So they were already going to their final location: The Everfree Forest.
Dash looked up at the twisted vines and curvy branches at the entrance to the forest. Never before had she felt so ready to enter such a place of nightmare.
It was because she had even more friends to stand together with.
Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Cream, Rouge, Amy, Silver and Shadow. They were a huge group of fighters, ready to meet any challenge. Sonic met her gaze, and grinned. He flashed her a thumbs up. She winked in return.
If only she knew what they were about to go through. If only she knew what would come out of this final quest.
For their paths were about to change.
Twilight adjusted her crown. "Alright, everyone! Let's go!"
The band of heroes went into the forest.
Instantly, the sun disappeared behing the thick foilage. For some reason, it was even gloomier, darker, and harder to see than ever.
Twilight had to light her horn, and everything was bathed in soft violet light. It was slightly creepy, trudging through the dark in silence with only an eerie glow to light their way.
Maybe it was because everyone was already too spooked out to notice anything else. But noone, not one of the seasoned fighters, heard the sinister deep rumbling slowly growing until it was too late.
Only then did Tails tense and shout, "MOVE!!"
Everyone rolled in their own direction as fourteen great walls of thick bush erupted out of the muddy soil. The purple light of Twilight's magic was shut off. There were some feminine screams from somewhere, Rarity, Amy, Fluttershy, noone could tell.
"What the - ?" Rainbow pounded on the thick, unyeilding wall. "No!"
Mere seconds into the forest, and they were already seperated. She heard Discord's laughter inside her head, but she blotted it out, gritting her teeth.
'Discord! You dirty, rotten... '
Ignoring her pounding heartbeat, she yelled, "Twilight! Sonic! Anyone or pony! Can you hear me?"
Sonic's voice came, but it was slightly muffled by the thick wall of foilage. "Dash! I can hear you!"
Twilight joined in. "I can too! Argh, I can't belive I fell for that trap. This is the same thing that happened in the maze!"
"What do we do now?" Silver's voice came from behind one of the walls.
Rainbow pondered. What could they do? What happened last time, when they went to meet up in the middle of the maze, ended in disaster.
Before she could reply, however, Twilight called out. "Go on! Find the Chaos Emerald! Try to find each other if you can."
"No! Remember what happened last time? We can't!" Rainbow yelled at the walls.
"Can you think of a better way?" Twilight shouted back.
"We'll never make it without each other!" Rainbow yelled. "Twilight!"
But Twilight didn't answer.
"Sonic! Applejack! Shadow! ANYONE!"
Noone replied.
She pounded on the walls again. Then a thought occured to her. The walls were Discord's doing... was it possible they were altering what each other said?
She broke away from the thick bush, and stumbled backwards. Then, with a grunt of frustration, she turned from the wall and looked into the thick forest before her.
Discord's move was smart. Now each of them were on their own, and didn't have each other to back themselves up. That way, whatever they faced, they would face it alone.
Dash swallowed hard, and then trotted into the forest.
===
Twilight thought hard, wondering what they should do.
'Come on, Twilight Sparkle! You're the one with the brains!'
"Try to find each other!" she yelled into the wall. "Remember, this is all one of Discord's tricks! You're never all alone!"
But noone answered.
"Anyone? Please, answer me!"
When still no answer came, she tried to run around the wall. But, impossibly, the more she ran, the longer it became.
Finally, she gave up. She sat heavily on the dusty floor, out of breath and panting. She cursed herself for not thinking ahead for ONCE in her life.
She looked at the unwelcoming dark forest before her. Somewhere in there was the Chaos Emerald. So, with no other choice, she wandered into the darkness.
She relit her horn, realising everyone else but Rarity and possibly Silver would be in pitch darkness. The thought made her long for her friends, furiously cursing Discord.
Discord. She once thought he was trustable, maybe even her friend. Now he was back to being a monster, and Twilight hated him. HATED him.
The thought had only just crossed her mind when her magic went dark.
She frowned; that had never happened before. She tried to relight it, but for some reason she couldn't. Panicking slightly, she lifted a hoof to her mane.
There was nothing there. Her horn was gone.
"NO!" she yelled aloud.
This was all exactly what had happened in the maze. Now all of it was playing out again, like some horrible cycle in history.
She stared around her. She could see nothing, nothing at all.
And then her heart froze over.
In the darkness before her, two unnaturally blue glowing eyes appeared. They were not happy.
A deep, ominous growling sound filled the air. Suddenly, the blue eyes were everywhere. There was a snapping of twigs as the unknown creatures closed in on Twilight.
Panic took over. She spooked and bolted, dropping all thoughts and following her natural pony instinct. Her nostrils flared and her pupils grew small with terror. Her ears went flat back on her head, her hooves thundering against the ground. But the creatures behind her slowly gained on her, until she let out a scream of pure terror as she felt the snap of jaws just miss her, and almost took a chunk out of her tail.
She was alone, in pitch darkness. She was running for her life. One little mistake, one little slip, and she would surely die.
She hated Discord.
===
Tails could see nothing but darkness. He fumbled through utter blackness, with no idea what had happened. He couldn't find any trees in the forest, or bushes. All he felt was the ground under his feet. He had heard the rumbling, he had yelled the warning, and then...
...blackness.
Part of him knew this was Discord's work. Discord had turned with world to utter darkness, and he couldn't see anything. But Tails didn't know why he had done it.
For some reason, he began to feel the tough earth beneath his trainers turning soft and dry. He could no longer find anything but trees, and even they were getting lesser and lesser. When he did find one, it was slender, and less rough.
"Where am I?"
Then suddenly, the darkness lifted off him, evaporating like fog. He could see, and he gasped at what he saw.
The tall, smooth trees. The empty, dry fields. The smoggy air. The far-off fortress. The lone tree stump.
He was home. He was at Knothole.
But why? Why had Discord taken him here? How did he know about his past?
There was a blast from somewhere down the hill, and a cry of pain. Then a crash, a metallic fizz, and the roar of a robot. Someone, most likely Knothole Freedom Fighters, were fighting a killing machine, most likely one of Robotnik's.
When Tails ran towards the battle, he noticed something peculiar. His sight was lower than usual, and he quickly tired out. He looked down at himself, and was stunned at how short he was. He let out a gasp, slowing down, and clamped a hand over his mouth in surprise. His voice was high and young.
He must be re-living the past.
"AAAAAGH!!" There was a roar of pain from up ahead, a very familiar voice. A girl's voice.
Tails sprinted over the hill and stopped in his tracks, frozen in terror.
There was an enormous robot. It had glowing red eyes and huge, metallic teeth. Great steel claws swept through the air, ripping down trees and tearing up bushes, flinging them aroud like they weighed nothing.
Worse, there was a familiar figure passed out on the ground.
"SALLY!"
The squirrel's jacket was in tatters. Her hair was a mess. She was lying on her side, and Tails could see there was a claw wound on her side, blood glistening grotesquely.
Tails ran foolishly to her side. Sally needed help, Tails couldn't see her chest moving...
"TAILS! LOOK OUT!!"
A huge metal hand slammed into his back, and suddenly Tails was sailing, blinded, through the air. He hit something, hard. When he could see again, he couldn't feel his legs or tails.
Worst of all, he could see what the robot was fighting. A blue blur raced through the air, barely perceptible. The robot claws raked the air in a futile attempt to catch it.
On one attmept, it got lucky.
"NO!" Tails screamed. He tried to rise, and yelled in pain.
Sonic stuggled as he was lifted up above the robot's head. To prove Tails right that he was in the past, this Sonic was shorter, slightly tubbier, and had a different style of spikes. But his desperate green eyes were the same, and they locked onto Tails' blue ones as the robot began to squeeze the life out of him.
"Tails..." He choked. "...Help me..."
But this time there was nothing Tails could do. His flight was useless, and he couldn't even stand. He was only a child, scared and unarmed.
Part of him, an uneffected part of him deep inside, told him this was all an illusion, set by Discord. This had never happened in his past. But the chaos magic was too strong for him to recognize that reassuring thought.
All he knew was that he could do nothing as his best friend was slowly being killed before his eyes.
===
Sonic was blown away from the wall when it came up out of the ground. He didn't know how far he shot, but he knew that he slammed hard into a tree, fell to the floor dazed and senseless, and when he came to a few seconds later he didn't know where the others were.
He got up. Twilight's magical light was gone, so everything was dark. He felt out behind himself, and he felt the rough bark of the tree he had hit.
'What do I do?'
Should he risk running through the darkness? There were trees everywhere, and slamming into anything at the speed of sound was not pleasant, and he knew firsthand how it felt.
That ruled out running. He would have to feel his way about. He had to find either the others, the Emerald, or a way out of this crazy forest.
But when he tried to move, he suddenly felt exhausted. Taking a step was like dragging a bag of bricks across a field of sandpaper. He staggered and fell to his knees.
'What the - what's going on?' he thought. His mind was awake and alert, but his legs were clumsy and slow. It had to be Discord's work.
Sonic tried to stand, but couldn't. Now he was getting really tired. He stifled an enourmous yawn and resisted the urge to curl up and go to sleep.
Now he got it. Discord was making him the opposite of what he should be. While he was normally full of boundless energy, he was now slow and weak and tired.
He slid into a sitting postion at the base of a tree, all his energy gone. He focused all his power... on keeping his eyes open. But... it was so hard...
There was rustling from somewhere to his left. Growling noises came from the same direction. Fear turned Sonic's bloodstream to ice, and his mind started overloading, screaming at himself to get up and run, but he could do nothing... as his eyes slid shut...
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- ShootingRainbowStar13 · 7k words · 80 3 · 5.5k views
- DarkMaster0224 · 25k words · 68 13 · 3.2k views
- mbpony 512 · 7.7k words · 34 14 · 21k views
- Shazam 25 · 2.9k words · 20 5 · 1.2k views
- ColossalParadox · 99k words · 177 26 · 10k views
- DKN117 · 51k words · 69 8 · 5.1k views
- Will Atkinson · 37k words · 80 29 · 6.1k views
- chaoswisp1000 · 23k words · 46 7 · 3.6k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.114 seconds
Total duration
1,027 users online
59,810 hits today, 2,073,628 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
GATHER THE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS!
ITS ANGRY MOB TIME!
Y U no comment?
3963501 WHY??
3974553
you said don't kill me
so you have wronged us somehow :O
so the mob is on its way now....
you should run ;)
3934048 I loved Pinkie's Promise I loved it loved it so well written.
4003297 Thank You!!!!
There must be more! D:
I love the thought of my childhood hero and my fav pony being shipped together~!
4137834 OMG.
READERS AWAIT. 
MUST KEEP WRITING.
4003297 Why... thank you!
4146514 you are most certainly welcome plus I also grew interested in the rainbows end which I hope will get more updated even with this story going o
It begins, bu bu bah!
Anyway, I've noticed that you haven't posted anything in a while. What happened?
Also, -Shameless plug-
I too am writing a MLP x Sonic crossover. Anyone that's interested in something different; should take a look.
4137834
*GASP* Aggghhh!!!!!!
Back from the grave. It's been forever. Like literally two years.
But I am back.
BACK TO WORK! YEARS OF LOST TIME ARE KILLING ME SLOWLY! MUST REREAD MY BOOK, PICK UP THE STRINGS, AND GET BACK THE THE WORLD!!!
4519812 Hello.
4945166
sup,
You continuing this thing or just checking your messages?
when is ch 14 coming?
No updates.........
4519812 i have read your stories their awesome but on devianart
Pwease...update...pwease...